change-the-prompt-in-clickhouse-client.md

title	description	date
Change the prompt in clickhouse-client	This article explains how to change the prompt in your Clickhouse client terminal window from :) to whatever you want.	2023-11-16

Change the prompt in clickhouse client

Background

If you don't like how clickhouse client displays the prompt in your terminal window, it's possible to change it by creating a single XML file. This article explains how to change the prompt to whatever you want.

The default prompt is your local computer name followed by :) :

However, you can edit the prompt to be whatever you want:

Steps

To edit the prompt, follow these steps:

1. Find where you clickhouse executable is stored, and create a file call custom-config.xml in the same directory:

   ./
   ├── clickhouse
   ├── custom-config.xml
   ...
   ├── user_scripts
   └── uuid
   

2. Inside custom-config.xml paste the following code:

   <?xml version="1.0" ?>
   <clickhouse>
           <prompt_by_server_display_name>
               <default>CUSTOM_PROMPT_HERE</default>
           </prompt_by_server_display_name>
   </clickhouse>

3. Replace CUSTOM_PROMPT_HERE with whatever you want your prompt to say. You must keep the prompt to a single line between the opening and closing <default> tags:

   <?xml version="1.0" ?>
   <clickhouse>
           <prompt_by_server_display_name>
               <default>local_clickhouse_client $> </default>
           </prompt_by_server_display_name>
   </clickhouse>

4. Save the custom-config.xml file.

5. Start the Clickhouse server if it isn't already running:

   ./clickhouse server

6. In a new terminal window, start the Clickhouse client with the --config-file=custom-config.xml argument:

   ./clickhouse client --config-file="custom-config.xml"

7. The Clickhouse client should open and display your custom prompt: